


Laughing at Moderation

by ishtarelisheba



Series: Domestic Rumbelle Family [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Rumbelle Showdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 05:18:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3798175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishtarelisheba/pseuds/ishtarelisheba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rumbelle Showdown 2015 - Round Four - (prompts: same age at university, courting, the potion master’s wife)</p><p>After Henry tells his grandpa about Grace's hopes of going to college, Rumpel redoubles his efforts in finding a solution for the town line problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laughing at Moderation

“We could go to college together!” Henry beamed, reaching for Grace’s hand. “Wasn’t it Vassar you were dreaming about? I don’t care where I go, I just wanna _go_.”

She threaded her fingers with his. “That would take breaking the barrier around the town,” she told him with a grin, having a bite of pancake off the fork held in her free hand, and nodded to the plate that Henry had been neglecting in favor of making doe eyes at her.

Belle sat very quietly by, a big smile hidden behind her book while she waited for her husband to bring her plate over. The kids didn’t have too many opportunities to get together without one Charming or another doing what they did best - interrupting - but she and Rumpel allowed them to court to their hearts’ content.

Henry resembled Rumpel more with every year that passed, and it warmed her that Grace found the effect as attractive in the grandson as Belle did in the grandfather. It wasn’t lost on Belle, either, how Henry looked at Grace the way Rumpel looked at her. She peered at Rumpel over the top of her hardback and found him smirking at her in return. 

“Grandpa’s fixing that, though. Aren’t you?” Henry asked over his shoulder.

Rumpelstiltskin gave the griddle pan a downward jerk with a twitch of his wrist, neatly flipping the last pancake. “Indeed I am,” he said, leaning a hip against the edge of the counter while he waited for it to brown.

Sunday morning breakfast had become something of a tradition with his grandson, beginning not too long after they lost Bae. When Henry ‘officially’ began courting the Hatter’s daughter (though Grace would cite that it went the other way around), she had become quite the fixture around the Gold house, as well. The two held hands and played footsie, and Rumpel and Belle pretended not to see the kisses the children snuck around corners and on the front porch, just as Henry and Grace pretended not to see theirs out in plain view.

Rumpel had been trying off and on for years to find a spell, a charm, a potion, _anything_ to break the seemingly perpetual curse on the town line, with very little luck to be had. For the past few months, however, outside of various members of the Charming family waylaying him for this and that absolutely world-ending emergency, he had been working on nothing but. Ever since Henry had spoken with him of Grace’s wish to attend university _outside_ of their stunted little town. Rumpelstiltskin knew well the feeling of wanting to grant one’s love every desire, and he’d set about making Bae’s little boy happy.

“I’m working at it, my boy,” Rumpel promised, and he lifted the pancake’s edge to check before sliding it onto a plate hot from the oven, atop the others. He took it and his own plate over to the table.

Belle set her book aside and reached over to tug one earbud from Rafe’s ear to end his homework music trance. He’d put his math assignment off until near the last minute yet again; it wasn’t his best subject, and he refused help, but he got the answers right with enough time. It still enchanted Belle, and Rumpel, too, to find familiar traits in him. His father’s stubbornness, in this particular case.

When breakfast was done with and the dishes washed and dried between the young lovebirds, Henry went upstairs to tell his little uncle goodbye and down to the basement to give his grandfather a farewell. Her grandson and eventual granddaughter (or so she expected) gone, Belle found herself rattling around the house by herself. Rumpel had engaged in this problem-solving perseveration since their days together in the Dark Castle, and _still_ it tried her nerves.

“Rumpel, dinner is ready!” Belle called down the open basement stairwell near eight. “It’s going to get cold.” 

She wondered just how many times she’d said the very same thing over the years. Their son was over at Emma and Henry’s for dinner, and she’d planned as romantic a meal as she could with last minute notice in hopes that her husband would surface long enough to eat and spend a bit of time _alone_ with her.

“Up in a bit, darling!” he called back, but Belle was certain she’d pass out if she held her breath waiting.

“Rumpel!” she called for the third time, a good hour later. He was lucky he could reheat their dinner with a flamboyant flip of his hand, or she’d have been twice as irritated.

“Aye, sweetheart, I’m here,” his voice came back to her with an air of distraction in it.

“Yes, I know you’re _there_. I’d prefer you were up _here_ for a while.”

Another half hour and he came up for dinner, but headed right back down to the basement after an apology and a kiss dropped on her cheek, with a murmur of, “I really am onto something, darling,” in his wake.

Belle read until Rafe came back through the door, then until she went to tuck him in, and _then_ until after her and Rumpel’s usual bedtime. When her eyelids began to droop, she decided she’d had enough. He would _not_ stay in the basement all night again. She marched down to the door with a call of, “The potion master’s wife is lonely, for goodness sake!” ahead of her. She would drag him up by the hair of his head, if she had to. 

She nearly collided with Rumpel, flying up the stairs at a speed she rarely saw him. “Wha-”

 _“I found it!”_ he cried, grabbing her around the waist and giving her a half spin, kissing her so soundly that she found herself breathless when he pulled away.

She gaped at him, grinning. “You found it?” 

“I have to test it at the site, but I think-” He nodded, stepping back enough to show her a small glass bottle half filled with a shimmering red liquid. “I believe I’ve found it.”

“Well, let’s go and test it, then.” Belle broke away from him to go and grab her coat. “You get Rafe, I’ll start the car.”

It was only a few minutes’ drive from the Victorian to the edge of town. She didn’t come here often. There were memories here, sweetness tainted by tragedy, and she held tight to his hand as they approached the line that had been painted over and again for the better part of a decade, now.

Rumpel unstoppered the bottle and walked to one edge of the blacktop. He raised his hand, flat and fingers spread, stroking his palm over the barrier. It shuddered blue, and he noted exactly where the edge landed on the line. He sprinkled the potion at that edge, walking across to the opposite side of the road, and a fizzing, arcing wave of purple magic followed in his steps as something happened with the barrier.

Bottle empty, he went back to Belle where she stood near the middle, wringing her hands in anxious anticipation.

“Here goes,” he said, and waved the tip of his cane over the line. There was no shudder of magic this time, and so he tried a hand. Still nothing. He looked up at Belle with apprehension in his eyes and took a deep breath.

“The scroll is in the shop’s front safe,” she repeated what he’d told her on the drive. “Just in case.”

Rumpel nodded and stepped across, denying purchase to the hesitation he felt. Though he sensed no magic when he crossed, his heart still thumped as he turned. But there was his wife, clear as day, and he smiled back at her as he stepped back into Storybrooke.

Belle whooped in excitement, clapping her hands and bouncing up on her toes.

“We should tell him!” he crowed, holding out a hand to her.

“It’s nearly two in the morning, Rumpel!” she laughed. But he gave her a look with those great brown eyes and half smile in the corner of his mouth, and it was an easy enough thing to relent on. “Henry _will_ be over the moon, and so will Grace. He’ll likely risk Jefferson’s wrath by going out to the mansion, you know, to tell Grace in person as soon as he hears. But, oh, Rumpel! The knowledge is worth it to everyone!” She threw her hands wide.

 _“Everyone,”_ she realized with a gasp. “It’s not only Henry and Grace who’ll benefit. Anyone who wants to leave, they can now. _We_ could, the two of us! We could explore the world, the way we’ve always talked about. Of course, we’ll have to wait until summer, but that’s only a few months away, and we’ll need to make all of our arrangements anyway-”

She found Rumpel beaming at her, his smile growing wider and wider the longer she went on. Belle shook her head, her excitement drawing a ramble from her, and she realized that, yes, they _should_ go ahead.

“Let’s go tell Henry,” she smiled, taking his hand.


End file.
